After
by duathkaimelar
Summary: Frasier contemplates the phone conversation between him and Lilith during 'Cranes Go Caribbean'. No matter how he tries to dismiss their words, he finds that perhaps he meant something more than intended after all. FrasierLilith implied.


**After  
Shadow Dreamer**

**Disclaimer:** Frasier and all the characters/episodes/quotes within belong to Paramount Pictures. I own nothing here. Not even the plot. The muses have rightful claim over that.  
**Pairing:** Frasier/Lilith implied  
**Rating:** T  
**Warnings:** None  
**Author's Notes:** Takes place almost directly after the last episode of season 8, 'Cranes Go Caribbean'.  
As always, please, please review!

**After**

I love you.

_I love you, Frasier_.

She'd said 'I love you'.

He didn't know why it was bothering him so much.

He'd responded, after all.

When he had responded, he'd meant it. He did love her – he loved her as something more than a best friend. She still knew him better than anyone, and nothing would change that fact. He could still trust her with anything.

He still knew that regardless of their past, and regardless of what they said to each other now, at the end of the day she would still be there if he needed someone.

Those exact reasons were why he called her, in fact. He knew what Niles would have said to him. He knew that Niles would accuse him of being afraid, of overanalyzing. He would have dismissed any claims Frasier made right away. At that moment, Niles' answer was not what he needed. He needed the truth, and he had believed he was more likely to find it with someone who knew his patterns slightly better than his brother.

Perhaps that was simply what he told himself. Perhaps if he was honest, he just wanted comfort and reassurance. He knew he would find it with her.

She had not necessarily agreed with him, but she had not disagreed, either. To be fair, he was not sure what he wanted himself, so there was no true side she could have agreed with, anyway.

Put simply, if one dug beyond the metaphors they'd passed like a soccer ball, she'd told him to do what he wanted, and what he felt was right, and nothing more or less than that. Nothing had meant more to him at that moment.

He hadn't read into it when she'd said, 'I love you, Frasier'. He remembered back seven years ago when she'd come to him asking for his blessing after Brian had asked her to marry him. He'd been wounded more than he would have admitted to anyone at that point, and jealous of course (of whom was an issue he had not wanted to contemplate), but he had been truly happy for her at the core. He remembered what she had said to him back then.

_'Must you be so churlish?'_

_'Well, I think I'm entitled! I mean, the one comfort in being divorced is that you're both losers. Eventually, the time comes when one person is the first to move on. And quite frankly, I'd hoped it would be me.'_

_'Well, I'd hoped it would be me. And it was! But, I'd like to think that, had things worked out the other way around, I would have been happy for you.'_

Since then, she'd tried so hard to do what she could for him. He was always supportive of her and Brian – until he left her, and afterwards he would have done anything to help her find some happiness again, the slight issue with her and Niles notwithstanding.

He had ignored the strange happiness he had felt when learning that Brian had left her, along with the feelings that stirred up inside of him when she had walked in his door that night, clad in a burgundy dress and transparent silk wrap.

It had been physical attraction, and nothing more. That was the decision he had come upon.

Perhaps the reasons why he had ignored his feelings then were the same reasons why he hadn't read any more into her 'I love you' just a short time ago. Besides that, he believed he had no reason to think it was any more than her supporting him, guiding him, being happy for his happiness, as she had promised him all those years ago.

No reason at all.

That being said, he couldn't figure out why he couldn't stop thinking about it, or about her.

He should be thinking about Claire. About Lana. About what he was going to do with this situation, and who he was going to chose. Yet when he thought of this, he found he was not worried. He was not in torment. In fact, he had a hard time focusing on the two of them at all.

Rather than come to an overdue decision regarding what he was going to do, he spent the rest of the night tossing, turning, and stopping himself from grabbing the phone and dialing an all too-familiar phone number.

Rather than contemplate which of the two women he had inquired about would make him happier, he spent the rest of the night wondering why he saw her pale, ethereal face when he buried his face in his pillow, and why her voice lingered in his mind, quiet, breathy, just like a whisper tickling his skin.

Come morning, he would remember restless dreams of pale, creamy flesh under his body, and of soft lips pressed against his own, but he would not remember that the hair he had caressed so lovingly had been black, rather than blonde.

**End**


End file.
